Film Review – Collateral Beauty

When Will Smith decides to get serious, there’s cause for concern. “Collateral Beauty” is the actor’s latest attempt to project sincerity, which doesn’t come naturally, attaching himself to a screenplay by Allen Loeb (“So Undercover,” “Here Comes the Boom”) that requires intense bouts of staring and teary monologuing, serving up a chance for Oscar gold while trying to reach an audience that never arrived to see a similar exercise in saccharine behavior: 2008’s “Seven Pounds.” “Collateral Beauty” is impossibly flimsy work, trying to merge whimsy with profound pain, emerging with a ridiculous premise that somehow attracted top-tier actors who were either excited to work with Smith or delighted with the number of zeros on their paycheck. Either way, the feature is shallow, programmed, and obvious, with Smith at the center of it all, swinging for the fences with a showy emotion turn that only reinforces just how misguided the effort is. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com